Can the ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers Be Believed? 723
An anonymous reader writes "When the Obama administration announced on April 1 that an estimated 7.1 million had signed up for ObamaCare by the end of March, it seemed a nearly impossible achievement. To reach 7.1 million, sign-ups had to rocket up by 67% in just one month. That's astounding enough, but an IBD review of existing ObamaCare enrollment data shows that the mathematical challenge of reaching 7.1 million sign-ups was even tougher."
i pledge to you... (Score:5, Funny)
...if you like your 7.1 million sign-ups, you can keep your 7.1 million sign-ups.
Re:i pledge to you... (Score:5, Insightful)
When government saves a life, Jesus punches a dolphin in the gills.
So does he ask his father to put the gills on the dolphin first, or how does that work?
Re:i pledge to you... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:i pledge to you... (Score:5, Informative)
First and foremost, Id like to see how many of these signups where actually Medicaid.
None. That's 7.1 million enrolled in marketplace plans, which has nothing to do with Medicaid. Medicaid enrollment increased by 5.9 million. Enrollment in employer-sponsored health coverage increased by 8.2 million.
(Please dont try to say they arent including the #s).
Well, I am saying it, because it's true ;-)
Now, how many of the 7.1 were people who had some kind of insurance prior: not yet known. How many of the new enrollees in Medicaid previously had other insurance and lost it: unknown. Certainly the number of people with health insurance did not increase by 21.2 (7.1 + 5.9 + 8.2) million, so don't even think about responding to me using a strawman argument that I'm claiming so.
more info here [thehealthcareblog.com]
A few have been able to enroll in Medicaid since the expansion, but that's really not ACA is it?
The Medicaid expansion is part of the Affordable Care Act. What exactly were you trying to say???
Re:i pledge to you... (Score:5, Informative)
What a lot of crap.
When the number was 6 million, the breakdown was roughly 3 million new on Medicaid, 2 million thanks to the "stay on your parents plan till 25" stuff, 1 million new exchange plans (and many, many million who lost their company plans).
Right, the number on the exchange was never 6 million. (It was 3.9 million in mid-March, and jumped to 7.1 million by the end of March, and I'm pretty sure there was no announcement in between.)
Now the numbers are 7.1 million on the exchange, 5.9 million new on Medicaid, and 8.2 million new on employer-sponsored insurance, for a net increase of probably 9.3 million after accounting for those who just shuffled from one form of insurance to another. WHICH YOU WOULD KNOW IF YOU HAD BOTHERED TO CLICK THE LINK I PROVIDED TO ACTUAL SOLID DATA, INSTEAD OF JUST SPEWING YOUR PATHETIC MISINFORMED FUCKING TROLLING!
Re:i pledge to you... (Score:4, Insightful)
Can the number of Christmas Gifts be Believed? (Score:5, Insightful)
To reach the number of Christmas gifts said to be bought for Christmas, gift purchases would have had to rocket up by 67% in December alone...
Re: (Score:3)
Or the number of people who file for their Taxes....
In short people will procrastinate.
Out of the uninsured...
I say about 10% would never join because they hate all things Obama.
Then you have those who do not want to join out of principal or figure the Tax Penalty is cheaper than getting insurance.
There is a portion who do not know about it.
Some will over procrastinate figuring they can always come in late.
However most would wait until the last minute.
Re:Can the number of Christmas Gifts be Believed? (Score:5, Funny)
Politics as usuall (Score:2, Interesting)
Like most numbers that come out of government, it takes a bit of creative license. Both major parties have mastered this deception. The real question is... Are we better off now that this law is in place? To which I have to think, probably not.
Re:Politics as usuall (Score:4, Interesting)
for some, its about getting insurance AT ALL if you want it.
pre-existing bullshit was one thing that needed fixing and its fixed.
SOME discount if you are a single buyer (not group plan based) is also there. in fact, it can be lower than cobra payments.
so, there was some benefit.
I'm unlucky in that my cobra payment is about as bad as my pre-obamacare non-group policy. I was unemployed with single policy for a while, then went contract and had a better pkg, then went full time and had a pretty decent pkg, now I'm laid off, on cobra and its back to non-group level monthly premiums that I was doing before I had that last job.
the insurance companies are raping us again, and using this as an excuse. nothing I'm doing has anything to do with obamacare but my rates went up a lot over the last yr or two and the 'discounts' are not really discounts that I can see.
but still, they can't cancel you for having pre-existing stuff and they can't totally deny you, either. those were 2 major evils pre-obama.
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Like most numbers that come out of government, it takes a bit of creative license. Both major parties have mastered this deception. The real question is... Are we better off now that this law is in place? To which I have to think, probably not.
"Probably not?" You're going to have to explain that one. Maybe some people are worse off, but millions are MUCH better off by not being denied health care for pre-existing conditions, being able to stay on their parent's healthcare plans, etc.
Granted, this IS a right-wing change to health insurance (from the previous generation of right-wingers, not the Tea Party wacko set we have now). This is a gimme to health care insurers, with no single payer, etc. It's a single step, but it's a good one until the Tea
"Obamacare Enrollment"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't care how accurate the numbers are; I care about the sloppy language. What they mean is that 7.1 million people have applied for coverage through the Federally Facilitated Marketplace.
I'm really fed up with this lazy language. It's ended up confusing millions of people who are just looking for some healthcare coverage. A lot of people seem to think that "Obamacare" is now some federal version of Medicaid, or young-people version of Medicare--a government program that pays medical expenses.
I don't care whether the Republicrats or Democans started the confusing talk; let's all be part of stopping it.
Re:"Obamacare Enrollment"? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not sloppy or lazy language. It's deceitful language.
They know full well that there are not 7.1 million newly insured people who are previously uninsured, which is basically what Carney claimed in a press conference yesterday.
About 5 million of those people are those who had their policies canceled, and about 2 million are previously-uninsured/uninsurable people who signed up. The number of people who have actually paid, out of these 7 million, remains a closely-guarded secret.
15-20% of enrollees have not paid, not insured? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:"Obamacare Enrollment"? (Score:5, Informative)
What all is included? (Score:2)
I expect the numbers are right, but the question is what all is included. This wouldn't be just the federal web site. They're almost certainly counting those who signed up through state exchanges. They're also going to count anyone who signed up on paper. All of that is fine, as this is a measure of the program, not of the web site.
But does it include those who signed up for expanded Medicare? Those are people who weren't insured before, and now are thanks to the new law, but it's not what most people
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Which would be fine if they consistently reported the numbers. The only two logical answers I can think of to support such a sudden jump. The first is people getting their taxes done and being reminded or even told for the first time about it. The second is that they were previously only reporting the federal exchange and this time around the reported the federal + state exchanges.
It's also not at all indicative of how many people have actually been covered.
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Expanded Medicaid. Not Medicare.
And no, those numbers don't include that.
What those numbers don't show is two things:
1) how many of those people have actually PAID for their insurance. Which is what actually activates the insurance - signing up on the website does nothing but express intent.
2) how many of those people are actually formerly uninsured. Remember those people who lost their insurance plans? Well, if they get insurance under the ACA, they're counted as part of that 7.5 million, even th
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Approximately 90% of the folks who signed up by the end of 2013 actually did, in fact, make their first payment on time. The remaining 10% either cancelled policy for some reason before payment (maybe they got a new job?) or just didn't pay (being poor sucks. No tax breaks for them.)
No reason to assume the numbers won't hold for
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It does not include Medicaid.
Of the 40.7 million who were uninsured in 2013, 14.5 million gained coverage, but 5.2 million of the insured lost coverage, for a net gain in coverage of approximately 9.3 million.
This represents a drop in the share of the population that is uninsured from 20.5 percent to 15.8 percent.
The 9.3 million person increase in insurance is driven not only by enrollment in marketplace plans, but also by gains in employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) and Medicaid.
Enrollment in ESI increased by 8.2 million.
Medicaid enrollment increased by 5.9 million. New enrollees are primarily drawn from those who were uninsured in 2013, or those who had âoeotherâ forms of insurance, including Medicare, retiree health insurance, and other government plans.
http://thehealthcareblog.com/b... [thehealthcareblog.com]
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I know an Obamacare success is a disaster for some people, but the administration set modest and realistic goals and largely met them.
A bunch of the really bad abuses perpetrated by insurance companies are now illegal, and many more people have access to affordable preventative care. Insurance company profit margins are effectively capped if they can't find ways to be exceptionall
The newest Washington scandal will be... (Score:2)
President Obama personally signed up for health care 4 million times to pump up the numbers.
You heard it here first, I hope. Seems like an "At Midnight" sort of joke.
It's California (Score:5, Insightful)
California's exchange is well capable of providing a mere 7 Million registrations and was not ever having problems while the Federal site was the subject of so much news controversy.
I am celebrating this event because This is the first time that Bruce Perens can get insurance coverage! I operate my own company and have previously only had access to insurance through my wife's employer. All of my family, my wife, my son, and I, have each individually been rejected by private insurers for what was esentially medical trivia. In my son's case, it was because he took a test they didn't like even though he passed it.
Not everyone understands the B.S. that private insurers were permitted to put people through.
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I am celebrating this event because This is the first time that Bruce Perens can get insurance coverage!
Are you saying that there was no insurer in CA that would have covered any of the three of you for any plan? Because I find that very hard to believe.
I'm not familiar with California, but every state that I've ever lived in has had a high risk pool that could not reject anybody. I'm guessing that CA also had a high risk pool, but you just didn't like the price, not that I blame you.
Re:It's California (Score:5, Interesting)
There were two sorts of plans available: There was a company that sold a "trash plan" and sent a sales person to my home. This plan was not written to provide useful medical coverage for a catastrophic condition such as an auto accident with severe injury. Basically, it was a "feel good about being insured until you try to use it" plan which had the main purpose of producing income for a fraudster. I am very glad that such things are being prohibited now because I know there are lots of people who are not as careful readers of terms as I am.
The second was priced so prohibitively high that it seemed to be intended to deter the customer from purchase.
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I am hardly surprised that insurance companies do not like the situation of having any additional regulation imposed upon them and will raise fees or do anything else they can do to protest and to discredit it.
If you've even hung around the emergency department of a hospital, you will have seen where the real cost of uninsured patients was going. Suddenly this cost is transferred from the hospital to subsidized plans. Ultimately, it should result in better management of the expense.
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Hi Bruce,
I also have my own company, with one employee. I have been purchasing coverage on the private market for my family of 4 for about $880 / mo. Now that plan is being cancelled by my insurance company because it's not grandfathered. To purchase an equivalent plan through my state exchange is going to cost about $1200 mo. I make just enough that I don't qualify for meaningful subsidies, and being self employed my subsidy eligibility doesn't take into account my huge self employment tax burden. So I am
Plan not grandfathered and minimum standard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you able to show us the terms of your plan? The reason I ask is that I was offered what turned out to be a "trash plan", and the sort of things that aren't being grandfathered are rejected because they don't meet a minimum standard of care. In my case, a catastrophic injury such as in an auto wreck would not have been covered significantly.
The lady who famously confronted Obama on this issue had a plan that limited its payout to a few hundred dollars.
Re:Plan not grandfathered and minimum standard. (Score:5, Insightful)
This. People would be surprised truly how useless many of these cheaper plans were. If you got a chronic illness or injury that had long lasting effects, you'd get some things paid for if you mounted a massive effort to get the insurance company to pay for what they are legally required to, but will try not to do by burying you and your providers in paperwork, delaying payments and pushing deadlines.
Then, when you come up to renew, you would be given a cost you can't afford. So, you lose your plan. You can't get another one.
Yes, insurance companies are jacking up prices, but this is panic driven. What the public will so learn is that most health care insurers can't actually pool risk, and only make money by denying care and pushing people out of the system.
Obamacare is a clear signal: If the health care insurance can't sustain its business by keeping all of the US healthy, it will be legislated out of existence. It's not a matter of if but when and how hard it will be. The rest of world has shown us that. The US will catch up to the idea that every human has the right to health without concern for cost or it will fail.
Re:Plan not grandfathered and minimum standard. (Score:5, Insightful)
To follow up on this.. I actually had an employer plan once that had a maximum annual payout of $1500. Not MY out-of-pocket maximum, the Insurers out-of-pocket maximum. I took one test for Sleep Apnea and I was done. They refused to pay for anything else the rest of the year. When I confronted my employer about it, they said "Well, it's cheap, and contractors don't tend to care about health insurance". That particular employer didn't offer any other plans. Oh, and my payment for this plan? About $1500 a year.
Some health plans really NEEDED to be eliminated, as they were little more than fraud.
Re:Plan not grandfathered and minimum standard. (Score:4, Informative)
Old plan: https://swp.mvphealthcare.com/... [mvphealthcare.com]
New Plan, closest to old plan AFAICT: http://www.discovermvp.com/con... [discovermvp.com]
A big part of the difference is the cost of covering my kids. On the old plan, they were covered at a MUCH lower rate than my wife and I, only $121/mo. On the new plan it's pretty much the same for all of us, $400. To add insult to injury if I made somewhat less each year my kids would qualify for Dr. Dynasaur (VT expanded medicare for kids) which would be only $60/mo and of course my wife and I could get federal subidies for our coverage but then I couldn't pay my other bills. It's a catch 22. I'm glad somebody's getting something good out of obama care because I feel like I'm getting taken out to the woodshed. My only hope is that Vermont rolls out single payer on schedule and it sucks less.
VT has had relatively strict health insurance laws for some time. E.g. vermont insurers cannot discriminate by prexisting conditions if the customer has had continuous coverage. If you let your coverage drop you're screwed though. Well that's changed now I suppose.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:It's California (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally feel for you. I am lucky enough to be insured, but when I was shopping around for cheaper insurance, I also was rejected for trivial stuff. My grandmother (who is not a doctor) said to me several years ago: "I think my mother and uncle might have died from the effects of Marfan's Sydrome (which can cause aorta rupture), and I think I have some of the symptoms, so you should consider getting checked out." At my annual checkup I ran it by my doctor, and he said: "I doubt it, but there are a couple cheap tests I can do to be more sure." In the end he concluded that I do NOT have Marfan's Syndrome.
Fast forward 2 or 3 years. I apply for insurance with a company other than my current insurer. They request permission to do a medical history check. "No problem," I think, because I've been given a clean bill of health by my doctor.
Insurance company decision: Coverage rejected for reason--"Question of Marfans." In other words, they don't trust what my doctor said with enough confidence to risk taking me on....
Part of the idea of Obamacare is that crap like this shouldn't happen anymore.
woo hoo (Score:2)
And that's surprising why? (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a deadline. People put stuff off to the deadline, especially when it means it's going to cost them money.
For comparison, this page [blogspot.com] has a graph of tax-related Google queries. Big shock: they spike right before deadlines in January and April. (That's a proxy for tax filings, for which I couldn't find a decent source. I suspect that tax filings are probably even more spread out, since many people get money back and would rather do it early.)
Combined with problems that would have caused people who tried earlier to fail, it doesn't seem at all likely that numbers would go up by a factor of 2/3. If you'd told me it was an order of magnitude, I might have been surprised. IBD has a history of a negative view of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") and so I'm not especially inclined to see their incredulity is anything other than ideology.
Why is this so difficult to believe? (Score:5, Interesting)
To reach 7.1 million, sign-ups had to rocket up by 67% in just one month. That's astounding enough.
A very very large number of people, myself included, tend to wait until the last minute to do things, especially if it's not something they particularly want to do. Especially if it's something they don't especially NEED right now, and will have to pay by the month for.
Just ask the IRS for a graph of how many people self-file their taxes in April as opposed to Jan/Feb. At least there there is the motivation for getting a refund earlier. There may be some people who have conditions that need to be treated now, but I'm willing to bet that the list of healthier people who never got insurance is much larger.
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March is the perfect time to file taxes. Much more leisurely. There's basically no driving forces that push people to do taxes in March. January/February is full of the habitually early filers (and those attempting to get a check in before spring break). Everyone else pretty much forgets or waits until April.
It depends on your frame of mind. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Seriously.
From the article:
an eye-popping 90% increase in just the last month of the six-month open enrollment period.
That's not eye-popping at all. The enrollment numbers didn't even double in the last month. Those number are completely ho-hum, and if anything, I'd expect it to be even more skewed to the last minute.
Terrible article (Score:3, Insightful)
Actual summary of article:
"It seems really unlikely the enrollment numbers got met because that would have meant a lot of last minute sign-ups *shrugs*"
"Oh and by the way even if the enrollment numbers got met, it probably doesn't count because if you haven't paid your first month's premium you don't count as an enrollment number for some reason because we said so"
Politimath is different than real math (Score:3, Informative)
If you play with the definition of things then you can make the numbers be whatever you want. Read a report last week that more than 1/3 of those were people that were dropped at the beginning of the year (which means there's very little real gain in number of people insured), and 1/4 hadn't actually paid. So the number is just a topical headline that they feed the media so they can pat their backs, but breaks down under serious scrutiny. Like "we've deported more illegal immigrants than the previous administration". Truth is they changed the definition of "deported" to count people who were stopped at the border and turned around, which had never been counted as a deportation before. Meanwhile the Border Patrolman's union is complaining that the administration and DHS/ICE are making their job nearly impossible, but the media won't cover them, and they actually kicked the leader of the union out of congressional hearings.
But they're the most transparent EVER!
Creative Counting (Score:2)
Sure, you can believe them that 7.5 million have enrolled. It comes down to how you define 'enrolled', which the government defines as "someone put an insurance choice in their electronic kart." That would be like CDW saying they sold 100,000 LaserJet printers, just because someone placed one into their basket. The reality is that that majority of the insurance plans placed into the insurance basket was never completed. And of those that did complete the process, many never paid their first premium, whi
7.1 million is pathetically low, so ya I believe (Score:2, Interesting)
In the first year of Obamacare we will still have more uninsured than in the last year of the Bush administration
7.1 million sign ups out of over 300 million people for a "mandatory" participation program is truly pathetic regardless whether it is above or below what was expected. Yes yes, I know the number of uninsured was closer to 60 million, so basically you are getting adoption among the intended uninsured population of just 12%. Just 12% of uninsured people are choosing Obamacare/ACA, that is what is
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Are you sure that's the right comparison? There are over 300 million people in the US, but you only have to apply for "Obamacare" if you don't have employer-provided health care, you aren't covered by your parents, you aren't qualified to draw on Medicare or Medicaid, and your obligation is waived for religious or moral reasons. This remain
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Re:7.1 million is pathetically low, so ya I believ (Score:5, Informative)
Um.. most of US population is already covered though their employers/family plan. They're talking about the 40 million or so Americans who cannot get affordable coverage due to preexisting conditions, income restraints, and the like.
Re:7.1 million is pathetically low, so ya I believ (Score:4, Informative)
Fact 1) 7.1 million were the number that signed up using exchange. NOT all the people that got insurance, just the number that signed up.
Fact 2) It did not include the people that were told they were approved for Medicaid.
Fact 3) It did not include the people that picked their own insurance not on the exchanges.
Fact 4)It did not included the young people now signed up on their parents plans.
You need to compare apples to apples. That is, 60 million without insurance before hand vs ??? million without insurance after hand. Trying to do 7.1/60 just demonstrates your complete inability to do honest math.
Re:7.1 million is pathetically low, so ya I believ (Score:5, Informative)
In the first year of Obamacare we will still have more uninsured than in the last year of the Bush administration
Bullshit. Best estimate I've seen [thehealthcareblog.com] is that right now, today, the number of uninsured has been decreased by about 25%.
7.1 million sign ups out of over 300 million people for a "mandatory" participation program is truly pathetic regardless whether it is above or below what was expected. Yes yes, I know the number of uninsured was closer to 60 million, so basically you are getting adoption among the intended uninsured population of just 12%. Just 12% of uninsured people are choosing Obamacare/ACA, that is what is remarkable.
Your comment is complete fucking nonsense. 1) Of course, as you sort of admit, out of 330 million people, there are about 300 million with some form of health insurance. 2) There were 40 million without health insurance, not 60 million. 3) In addition to whatever fraction of the 7.1 million were previously uninsured, several million more have been added by the Medicaid expansion. 4) In addition to whatever fraction of the 7.1 million were previously uninsured, several million more have been added to employer-sponsored programs.
How many were kicked out of their existing plan? (Score:2)
Weren't something like 6 million people kicked out of their existing health plans and had to enroll in a new one?
So 7.1 million enrollments less the 6 million who already had health plans makes 1.1 fresh enrollments. Those numbers seem right in that case.
Wah, wah (Score:2, Insightful)
"The numbers turned out *much* higher than Fox News predicted, and I *know* that many people couldn't possibly want health insurance, because that brochure from the Heritage Foundation said so. It must be a conspiracy..."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c... [nytimes.com]
Comment removed (Score:3)
Hmm.... (Score:2)
Editor posts story from anonymous troll regurgitating punditry talking points (that were refuted last week BTW) and it headlines on Slashdot. Stats only lie if you misrepresent the context:
http://wonkette.com/545324/latest-awesome-fox-chart-unskews-obamacare-enrollment-thanks-fox [wonkette.com]
How the numbers were acheived (Score:2)
1. A lot of late signups. - People waiting for the individual mandate being delayed.
2. Cancelled plans. Remember "if you like your plan, you can keep it" except you can't. All those people who lost their plan were insured are now uninsured and that greatly enlarged the number of people seeking. So you can't compare before and after numbers.
3. Some companies dropped plans entirely and let their employees get their own. My company was on the verge of doing that but elected not to at the last minute.
4. The com
How many actually paid, new policies? (Score:3, Informative)
Other important questions: how many of those 7.1 million have actually paid for the policies, and how many just went through the web site? Also, how many of these policies are insuring the previously uninsured, and how many are insuring people who lost their previous insurance due to the ACA?
I don't have those numbers. Nobody seems to have those numbers... Kathleen Sebelius has said "we don't know that" (see YouTube link below).
I have a suspicion that if the numbers were good, somehow they would have the numbers.
The DailyMail article says that a RAND Corporation study estimates that the number of previously uninsured people who have actually paid for their policies is: 858,000 (well under a million!). I haven't found a source for this. I believe they computed this number themselves, by reading the RAND report and by using the percentages in that report.
Avik Roy read the same report, and reports the number as 1.4 million +/- 0.7 million, i.e. 700,000 people to 2.1 million people, 95% confidence.
I believe this is the RAND Corporation study being discussed: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR600/RR656/RAND_RR656.pdf [rand.org]
References:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2594309/President-plans-victory-lap-strong-Obamacare-enrollment-Sebelius-faces-unpopular-law-blank-stare-tough-questions-remain-whos-signing-up.html [dailymail.co.uk]
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/30/news/economy/obamacare-premiums/ [cnn.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXDdmRaJy2c [youtube.com]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/04/09/rand-comes-clean-obamacares-exchanges-enrolled-only-1-4-million-previously-uninsured-individuals/ [forbes.com]
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise, I'll say how dare you expect the rest of us to pay for your health care because you don't want to.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Informative)
You can set up a HSA instead of insurance, if you want.
Nope. If you sign up for an HSA [wikipedia.org] then you must also sign up for an HDHP (High Deductible Health Plan). But by getting an HSA+HDHP, you are conforming to Obamacare, not "opting out".
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If you can still find such a thing (especially for a price that isn't 2x as much as a non-HSA-eligible plan with the same terms otherwise)...
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Over the last 10 years or so, all health insurance has gone to crap. Plans have gotten worse and costs increased at a staggering pace. Even if you have the best plan available, it's still crap. Liberals love to propagate this narrative that ignorant Republicans like to cling to "bad plans". But they're all "bad plans".
An HSA is a nice tax sheltered way to sock away your deductible. So you get to pay for medical expenses with non-taxed income.
Plus, it is a concept that fosters an adult level self reliance an
HSA plus catastrophic (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the way it should be. No one should have to pay for your runny nose or whatever. Set aside the money like any normal and prudent person would do and use it for that. If the SHTF, the catastrophic insurance has you covered.
People will pay $60 to get their hair done once a month but think paying $60 for an office visit is robbery. Crazy. Have your hair dresser prescribe the antibiotics then.
Re:HSA plus catastrophic (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, only problem is because most other people rely on buffet-style all-you-can-eat-for-fixed-price, the cash price for many services is stupendously high.
Last year I had a month-long cold of some sort and needed a checkup to find out what was wrong and get anti-biotics. I don't have a family doctor because the last two I've had retired (drove out of business due to poor medicare reimbursement rates), so I went to Patient First. I asked them how much the checkup would cost, and they said they could not tell me until after the services were performed. Great.
Got a bill in the mail a month later for $300 for a 5 minute checkup and chest x-ray. Anti-biotics were another $80. I don't mind paying these prices if that's what they actually cost. That's what the HSA is for. The problem is they would not tell me what the costs would be up front, and I had no way of shopping around for better prices at competing clinics. That's like going to McDonalds for a hamburger, but they won't tell you what the price is until they mail it to you a month later. And the cost of the burger ends up depending on how hungry you were at the time and how many poor people and illegal immigrants they had to give free hamburgers to.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:4, Insightful)
Such as the smokers, the obese, alcoholics and drug users who can continue with their merry lifestyles, safe and secure in the knowledge everyone else is forced to hand over their money so they don't have to take personal responsibility for their actions, right?
Obamacare (as well as Romneycare) does nothing to lower health costs or ease the burden on the system so long as people are not forced to live healthier lifestyles. All they are doing is extracting money from people simply for the sake of extracting money and giving it to insurance companies who have gotten a huge financial windfall.
Considering how people on here rant about big bad corporations, this point should have been obvious, but I guess when you can take money from people, simply because you can, that never enters into the equation.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:4, Insightful)
Obamacare (as well as Romneycare) does nothing to lower health costs...
Sure it does. There's way more to the ACA than health exchanges and elimination of denials for pre-existing conditions. Whether or not the provisions aimed at controlling costs actually work or not will take a long time to figure out. But ACOs and medical homes and and PCORI...
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:4, Interesting)
Otherwise, I'll say how dare you expect the rest of us to pay for your health care because you don't want to.
Not wanting to be forced to buy health insurance by a government that has no real constitutional authority to force you to buy what it tells you to is not he same as not expecting to have to pay for health care.
I just saw the nice new box on my W2 that shows "employer health insurance" payments. It was about five times what I would have paid out of my own pocket for my health care last year. Had my employer been legally allowed to hand me that money directly and allow me to pay as I go, I'd be several thousand dollars ahead of the game.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
Pre-tax deductions have not changed. I don't know what wacko changes have changed your taxes, but it ain't ACA.
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Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose that instead of calling it a fine for not buying insurance, they had simply described it differently. Suppose they decided to tax everyone by a fixed amount, and then offered a tax rebate to anyone who bought insurance. Would you still feel that was unconstitutional? The government has the right to levy taxes - no question about that. And they have the right to spend money however they want, including giving it out as tax rebates to encourage particular behaviors. Yet the two situations are completely identical as far as money is concerned. The only difference is how they describe it. What makes the first unconstitutional and the second not?
Anyway, your claim about the Supreme Court is simply wrong. They've ruled that choosing to spend money in particular ways in particular circumstances is protected free speech, but they've never made any blanket claim that money=speech. For example, they still allow lots of restrictions on donations to political campaigns. You can't donate more than a fixed amount to any one candidate, and while you're allowed to buy political advertisements on your own, you can't coordinate with the campaigns you intend to support. And much more relevantly: so far as I know, they have never ruled in any context that you have a right to refuse to pay taxes or fines levied by the government.
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The 16th amendment [wikipedia.org] is extremely dangerous. It gives the federal government the constitution power to tax your income without limit or restriction. While a "free speech tax" per se might be ruled unconstitutional, when it comes to freedom regarding your money the rule is quite clear: pay your taxes or else.
So, you are "free" to not pay the insurance companies, of course, but the government is allowed to tax you as much as they want if you don't (well, if you do too, but for less at least). Maybe it might b
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Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:4, Insightful)
"This shit is so unconstitutional"
please point to me where the constitution say we can't have mandatory insurance?
Perhaps you mean to say "I don't like it, so I'm going to say it' unconstitutional because I have no clue what the Constitution says?"
" How dare you fine me for not buying your services."
It's a fee, not a fine. If it was a fine it would be assigned after you failed to buy insurance on a case by case basis. IT's an amount set in the bill, hence fine. An important distinction. Which isn't to say you have to like it., only that you sound like an idiot when you scream at the wind and the term you use is incorrect.
It's a service you will use, sooner or later.
"Money is speech according to the Supreme Court, and so I say no to Obama care."
Supreme Court said no such thing.
"I'm making use of my first amendment by not giving my money to this system."
That has nothing to do with the first Amendment
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This ALWAYS this you crybabies whine about right up until it is your ASS being left out front of the hospital. Then it is all about SAVE ME!
What you say could be 100% true and the ACA could still be unconstitutional. What you are doing here is attacking the person (an imaginary person) rather than attacking the argument. If you want to argue that it is constitutional your best bet would be to go to the constitution and find the parts that you think would allow for this legislation. For help you could read what the supreme court justices said about the legislation.
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They also said that the 2nd amendment guaranteed the right of private citizen's to own and carry firearms. That good enough for you that you will demand that your politicians stop trying to pass laws contrary to that opinion?
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That right there takes balls.
Article clearly states that the 1.7 trillion dollar number (Which is not "Trillions") is the GLOBAL military spending.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
If you truly cannot afford it, the federal credit kicks in to defray the monthly cost. You can be compliant with the law at basically no cost to yourself if all you take is a Catastrophic or Bronze-level plan. After the credit, I'm paying $30/mo for low deductible/out of pocket health ins. with no co-insurance, for example.
And hospitals having to write off expenses from uninsured ER visits costs many billions of dollars each year -- which get passed on to the premiums of everyone who does pay for insurance. Isn't that a bit unfair?
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, in the UK, it really does work like that. Even if you're only visiting the UK for a 2 hour period, and manage to become seriously ill in that time, you'll get free treatment there.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:4, Informative)
BS - You pay unless your a college student, a citizen from another European Union country that signed an agreement with the NHS, or other select cases
From the NHS - http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/10... [www.nhs.uk]
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As a Canadian, I can tell you that most provinces have a few months wait between the time you take up residence and the time you can get health insurance.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm just curious. Why is it that so many countries in the world have universal health care paid by the population (through taxes) yet one of the most prosperous and powerful countries in the world can't figure it out or refuses to implement it?
Is capitalist greed getting in the way or am I missing something?
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Thank god for Obamacare. (Score:5, Insightful)
Situation 1) No law requiring people to buy healthcare, no law blocking insurance companies from denying you healthcare for pre-existing situations. They can even deny you healthcare for brain cancer because you have diabetes. (or worse, accept you, then deny coverage because you failed to disclose you had diabetes). People that get screwed: a) anyone that is not 100% healthy and also b) anyone that risks going without insurance but ends up needing it.
Situations 2) Law requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions, but no law requiring people to buy insurance. People that get screwed: Insurance companies, as people wait till after they get sick to buy insurance. Then after insurance companies all go bankrupt, everyone gets screwed.
Situation 3) Law requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions and also a law requiring people to buy insurance. People that get screwed: Anyone that wanted to risk going without good insurance and would have been lucky enough not to need it.
The first situation was what we used to have. The second situation is what we tried to avoid. The third situation is what we have now. Please note it only screw up assholes that tried to take ridiculous gambles and happened to be lucky enough to win the gamble.
We had a choice - screw over the sick, screw over insurance companies (which would have eventually led to a truly government controlled healthcare), or require everyone to buy insurance. We wisely made the best possible decision.
P.S.I am employed and have good healthcare - which I desperately need because I got sick (nasty virus) in college and my kidneys have slowly been dying over the past 20 years, despite the fact that I don't drink, etc. I have maybe 5 more years till I need a transplant and am clearly one of the people that will very much benefit from Obamacare.
Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Insightful)
One important reason for that is that consumers can tell the producers of non-essential goods and services to get lost if they don't like the price. Essential goods and services, pretty much by definition, don't have that property.
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Re:Fuck Obamacare (Score:5, Funny)
People with power and influence play the rest of the population like fiddles. Those in power decided that (at least in the short term) government-controlled health care would be bad for profits, so they play on the unique insecurities inherent to American culture to achieve their goals.
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I am just curious why the US is willing to pay 50-100% more than the rest of the world for health care per person for outcomes that aren't any better and in some cases worse than the rest of the world.
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Re:Not so fast, cowboy ... (Score:5, Informative)
There was a legal challenge to the ACA already, and it was defeated in court. In other words: your views on the constitutionality of the ACA aren't shared by the current Supreme Court, and therefore they are pretty much irrelevant
You seem to not understand how the Supreme Court works. That's OK, it's arcane.
The particular ACA challenge you refer to was over the Constitutionality of the ACA as a fine. The Court said, "it's not a fine, it's a tax, and FedGov can levy taxes." The challenge was defeated.
Now other lawyers [cato.org] are back before the Court arguing that taxes must originate in the House, per the Constitution, while ACA is a Senate bill (with gut-and-replace not being a valid technique to avoid germaneness via-a-vis the Origination Clause). The Court will rule on that narrow point and then the next challenge will be heard.
SCOTUS will never come out and say, "All aspects of ACA are Constitutional".
Re:Not so fast, cowboy ... (Score:4, Insightful)
That the Fugitive Slave Act was deemed constitutional? But the 13th Amendment to the CONSTITUTION made that irrelevant, didn't it?
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Also, this is EXACTLY how car insurance works.
False. Auto insurance makes no guarantee to pay car repairs for people who cannot afford auto insurance. There is not even a sliding scale. Auto insurance only pays for those who pay in and the amount you pay in is determined by their statistical assessment of how much they are likely to have to pay out for you personally.
Also, before auto insurance was made mandatory, it was also a lot cheaper. I pay more per month now than I paid per year when I was 16 years old, and the car I had when I was 16 was 8 ye
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
You really expect to believe the numbers coming out of Washington? Gullible aren't we?
Sure, this is the worst administration for lies in our lifetime, but even before this one, they still fudged numbers. It's just the way the game is played out there.
define "lifetime."
also, i'm pretty sure THIS was the worst falsehood from a U.S. presidential administration in our relative lifespans: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/st... [cbsnews.com]
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, this is the worst administration for lies in our lifetime
You're very well-spoken for a five year old.
Re:Lies, damned lies, and statistics... (Score:4, Informative)
If you're eligible for Medicaid, you are NOT eligible for the ACA subsidies for health insurance. Which means that if you CHOOSE to buy your own insurance when eligible for Medicaid, insurance will cost you five times what it costs someone who makes a bit more money (and is therefore eligible for subsidies).
That said, what they're not saying, so far, is how many of those 7.5 million (7.1 is sooo yesterday - today's number is 7.5) have actually paid a premium for this new insurance.
Note that many insurance companies aren't going to be accepting new clients after the close of "open enrollment" absent changes in life/employent/whatever. If you marry, divorce, get a job, lose a job, become a widow/widower, you can get insurance, but you can't just any old time.
Apparently the possibility that people might take advantage of the "no pre-existing condition" clause of the ACA to get insurance when something catastrophic happens disturbs the insurance companies' bottom line deeply.
Re:Lies, damned lies, and statistics... (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently the possibility that people might take advantage of the "no pre-existing condition" clause of the ACA to get insurance when something catastrophic happens disturbs the insurance companies' bottom line deeply.
This is precisely what's happening...it's called "adverse selection".
I personally know someone who switched plans during open enrollment to get a different carrier who would pay the $100k for her experimental treatment. She has to pay slightly higher premiums than the first plan she was on, but it's not a bad tradeoff when you're "buying" $100k of value for a few hundred a month. She can't be declined and her preexisting condition must be covered.
Everyone understands why you can't buy auto insurance coverage for a collision that already has happened. The same holds for health insurance—it's absolutely untenable otherwise. Not that there is any love lost between me and the scumbag health insurance industry. I'm just pointing out it literally actuarially/mathematically cannot work the way some people want it to. You simply can't let people wait until they have, say, cancer to sign up for insurance and then demand that insurance pay for the treatment.
What's the solution? Well, since we as a society have decided we do not want a free market in health care (a free market would necessarily entail leaving those who cannot pay to die outside the doors of the ER), then our next optimization is to save money. We spend more per capita and in total than every other nation, and we get worse average outcomes for our population.
To put it more plainly: a socialized medicine system like they have in the UK would COST LESS than what we have now.
Furthermore, the NHS public healthcare system in the UK works alongside a private, more "free market" type of healthcare system. We could mirror that here if we wanted to encourage the private industry innovation that appeals to our cultural sensibilities. We already have that in other realms: the USPS and FedEx operate side by side, there are private schools that operate alongside public schools, etc.
Finally, we need to realize that a huge percentage of the US population is ALREADY on socialized medicine (ie. governmental health care programs paid for by taxes): everyone who is over 65 (Medicare), the poor (Medicaid), the veterans (the VA), the Armed Forces (Tricare), all federal, state and local governmental employees (taxes pay their premiums). Does anyone believe we will ever elimated those programs, barring universal healthcare in this country? The "free market for healthcare" ship sailed a long time ago.
Let's just try to save some money and get better health for our population instead of trying to pretend a mathematically-broken insurance approach is ever going to be a good idea.
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So the 'evidence' is someone who doesn't like the program in the first place, scratching his head and saying I don't believe you could sign up that many people that close to a deadline.
It's almost like he didn't believe that there was a huge embarrassing failure in the system six months ago that the feds made a 'tech surge' (lol) to correct.
Or that no one realized that everyone would wait and planned for lots of late signups.
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But don't go blaming the Affordable Health Care Act for the problems you have getting Medicaid.
If you are employed, the AHCA simply prevented a bunch of liars from selling you expensive wallpaper and pretending it was healthcare.
Re:ACA was supposed to insure 42 million (Score:4, Insightful)
My daughter-in-law attempted to sign up for Obamacare. She is in school and makes no money. Between her and my stepson, they make maybe $4-$5k per year, about $10,000 of which goes to pay for school. Yes, I know that doesn't add up. Anyway, she tried to sign up for Obamacare, and the cheapest plan she could get would have cost her $143 a month. She can't afford that, so she didn't sign up. She asked about the penalty and they said since she didn't make much money, she doesn't have to pay the penalty. So what does that mean? It means Obamacare did nothing. Poor people still don't have insurance. They don't have to pay the penalty either. They just go to the emergency room like they used to. Nothing has changed except that the people who already HAD insurance now pay twice as much.
They should be eligible for Medicaid.
I'm sure if my stepson and daughter-in-law were to drop out of school have a kid and sit at home all day THEN Obamacare would kick in and pay for them. After all, that is what Obama really wants, is for people to sit at home and make babies, not waste their time on education.
Well, at least they're trying to better themselves, rather than growing up to be a fucking ignorant bitter racist troll like yourself.